With around 2.5 million barrels per day (mb/d) of Iranian supply targeted by the Trump administration, how will the oil market cope with the losses? Is there enough supply capacity to make up for the shortfall?

There is a great deal of debate about the true extent of the world’s spare capacity. Or, more precisely, there are a range of guesses over how much surplus is located in Saudi Arabia, the one country that really has the ability to ramp up large volumes of supply on short notice.

Saudi Arabia claims it could produce 12.5 mb/d if it really needed to. However, that claim has not been put to the test. Saudi Arabia’s all-time highest level of production was just over 10.7 mb/d in 2016, just before it helped engineer the OPEC+ production cuts…